Confidence Problems with Performance

[allegroamabile]

First of all, I would like to point that I'm nagative towards myself and I always strive for perfection when it comes to practicing music. I feel that when I practice, I am only using 50 percent of my potential and it is really bothersome. When I play, all I can think about is "don't mess up" and it is taking away a great deal of my ability. This mental attitude is probabily due to a complicated history outside of music. Can I get any output from any of you on this mental block. I will be very thankful for any help.

Regards

[Niels]

Be proud with yourself you can play those hard pieces. I think that would work (it works for me).

[steltz]

I use a multi-pronged approach with my students.

The two most important things you need are:

1) A good relaxation technique that gets practiced as often as you practice scales (but it only takes 5-10 minutes, so it doesn't really take away from the practice time). My favorite is a breathing meditation, because it helps unlock breathing muscles.
2) An undertaking to continue looking at why there are underlying issues of harsh self-judging.

After that, there are other important things to add in:
3) An acceptance that live performance is different from CDs with zillions of edits in them and that things go wrong in live performance. If your reaction time is quick enough, it gets sorted out with relatively little fuss and the audience isn't aware of it.
4) An acceptance that you WANT adrenalin, just not too much of it (that's what the relaxation technique is for). Adrenalin gives you heightened awareness (medically called hyperacuity), and this is what gives us improved reaction times. So you're brain is alert, your body is relaxed.

There are also good books available -- does your school have a good library with these sorts of materials?

[SeanMartin]

I dont perform publicly (to which some might say "Thank God!"), but I've been on stage and my line of work as an exhibit and trade show designer demands I make presentations to clients... which is in effect putting myself out there because it's my design under critical consideration. Like you, I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to the presentations: I'll spend hours upon hours looking for just the *right* background music, then spending more hours cuing the walk-through animation to it... in essence doing a hundred things that the client will never notice because s/he is so focused on what the design looks like.

But even as an actor, I had my serious moments of stagefright (which, let's face it, is what you're talking about here). Will I remember my lines? Do I have on the right costume for this scene? Am I gonna bump into the scenery? Just those three questions pretrified me.

So looking at both of these situations, let me tell you how to get around it. The advice the others have offered is very good, but there's one more key element to remember: your audience is there for you. Audiences are usually very forgiving animals. They dont want you to fail. They want to see the love and passion you bring to your craft and talent, and they want to support you in that vision. They are not an adversary; they are a willing co-hort, waiting to be thrilled because of what you bring to the moment.

So share that love with them. Share that committment and that passion... and if you screw up, you screw up. Unless it's some huge boner, like playing the third movement when everyone else is on the second, the audience wont mind. They're sitting there in rapt admiration of what you can do, so let them admire.

A good performance, IMHO, is one that connects with the audience, making them a part of the sheer joy of the music. I think this is why I prefer chamber stuff to orchestral performances: I get to be in on the act of making the music happen. And yeah, sometimes the players mess up. But if they've connected with me, I dont care: I love and admire them all the more fot it.

[allegroamabile]

Thanks for commenting.

2) An undertaking to continue looking at why there are underlying issues of harsh self-judging.

Explain that to me a little more. I think I know what you mean I just want confirmation.

Another thing I try to do is enjoy the music I'm playing. There are so many musicians who don't get the feelings I do from music, and I am going to take that as an advantage. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I guess I need to practice it. I guess this is related to what Sean said. What do you think?

I can have the practice sessions where I do great, and then the next day is just frustrating. This uncertainty is even more frustrating.

I have been reading some descent articles on the web about positive thinking / self confidence. What I've learned so far is that affirmations and positive visualizations are the key to doing well. This is hard for me since I think so negativeley.

About relaxtion, I got really into that a couple of months ago, but it seemed to affect my embouchure and air stream. As my arm muscles loosened, so did those parts. Plus if you go into an audition, tension is inevitible, at least for me. Another thing I learned is progressive muscle tension. I think that is what you call it. It is where you tightened parts of your body, then release the pressure and relax those certain muscles.

[steltz]

Underlying issues -- they are different for all of us. One example might be an overly judgmental parent whose comments stuck, and now the performer does it to himself instead of listening to someone else do it. Another might be a particularly bad performance where someone said something insensitive, and the performer now believes on some level that all performances will be the same. These sorts of things don't get cured overnight, so you have to keep working on why you are so negative.

As you sort out all the other stuff, enjoyment does become a part of it.

The relaxation vs embouchure/air stream sounds to me like it's getting floppy rather than merely relaxed. We need some tension in the body in order to stay upright, otherwise we fall over. It's a matter of only having enough to stay straight and no more. Alexander Technique is a great help, and some music schools and universities have people come in to teach it.

There are two other related fields that I know of -- one is Feldenkrais method (developed by actors, but useful for us too), and this apparently also deals with self-image. The other is Body Mapping, and I know of books for flute and piano, and I believe someone has written a paper on Body Mapping for clarinet, but I haven't seen it yet.

Tightening and loosening muscles is a traditional way of working on the ability to deliberately loosen a muscle. I find the breathing meditation useful because it also helps slow down pulse, lower blood pressure, and deepen the breathing. All things that are good for us.

[carsonics]

First of all you have to have courage. If you make mistakes during a concert, you're not going to die! You have to eliminate the self-consciousness and fear during the rehearsal phase. First work out the tecnical problems, then address physical movement and fluidity of body movement (if you're body is tense or dysfunctional at specific parts or passages you need to work out the physical problems of movement and mental fear which will cause tension), finally rehearse for endurance, that is, be able to play through an entire program in order to build up endurance and strength. But the most important thing is that you're playing music, not notes. You're there to express, move the audience, hit them over the head, make them cry, excite them, make them think, etc. You can't do any of that if you're "trying not to make mistakes." Classical musicians sometimes think that if they just play the notes with out making mistakes that the music will be exciting, NOT! There's a real similarity to acting on stage in my opinion - if you just read lines it's boring. You have to act, emote, get inside the character, and project.

[carmar1791]

Very usefull book about this problem:
"The inner game of music" by Barry Green with W.Timothy Gallwey, published by Doubleday New York.
I think is what you are looking for.